<p>Juan Gris traveled to Paris in 1906 and soon moved to the neighborhood of Montmartre, where he met <a href="https://www.artic.edu/artists/36198">Pablo Picasso</a> and <a href="https://www.artic.edu/artists/33739">Georges Braque</a>. Eventually, Gris joined their artistic circle and participated in the development of Cubism. In <em>Abstraction (Guitar and Glass)</em>, he incorporated objects often used in Cubist still-life painting—musical instruments, newspaper, a glass, and a tabletop. Rather than shatter their forms, however, Gris took a more synthetic approach to the composition. The overlapping planes, flattened appearance, and rhythmic patterns of the painting reinforce the two-dimensional nature of the picture’s surface, while the trompe l’oeil effects, deeply saturated colors, strong light-dark contrasts, and precise definition of forms give the still life an extraordinary physical reality.</p>